I’m Naya,

I am a lifelong seeker who believes that pursuing our inner calling allows us to understand who we are, find a deeper sense of meaning, and break free from what holds us back.

I share real life stories through books, essays, and film. I believe that when we share our experiences, we advocate for healing, wellness, and growth. My work encourages resilience, strength, and resourcefulness in moving through difficult situations. A return to wholeness requires the willingness to deal with life’s biggest challenges head on and the insistence that we not only survive, but thrive. It also requires us to learn the practical life skills that protect us and our beloveds from harm.

My Stories

My book, Untouched and Untaken: A Woman’s Journey to Overcome Her Generational Legacy, is a memoir about  being called to something bigger than myself and the family I was born into. While my mother battled severe mental illness, and my father planned his escape, I yearned for a more expansive life through connection with the natural world. In the forests and meadows of upstate New York, woodland creatures in fall, buzzing bees in spring, and bare feet on crab apples across the long days of summer were the promise of a greater home.

When I was twelve years old and my mom kicked me out of the house in a borderline rage, my calling was activated earlier than expected. Living with my dad and stepmom was a time of calm, but also, loneliness.

After surviving adolescence and just before my eighteenth birthday, I left Rochester for the University of Colorado in Boulder. Desperate to start anew, I separated myself from the invisible child and distraught teen I had been by becoming an activist. Fighting government interest in clear-cutting old forests, I felt lucid, purposeful, and uninhibited for the first time–but I soon realized this mission was filled with strife and near impossible odds. When a young man invited me to hear a spiritual teacher from India speak on campus, a great peace came over me at the lecture. The voice of freedom that had called me since childhood was stronger than ever, so I chose a new path.

My interest in matters of the spirit soon drove me to leave the university for alternative studies. I joined a traditional gurukula in Boulder, and became certified to teach Ayurvedic practices and principles including nutrition, herbs, detoxification, rejuvenation, and meditation. I was called to study holistic midwifery, and became a doula to support women in pregnancy and birth. I learned the varied lineages of yoga, became a certified yoga teacher, and taught in studios from Colorado to California to Costa Rica. As my need for traditional structures waned, I let go of having a stationary home, and moved into a Volkswagen bus, which allowed me to follow various spiritual teachers in the lineage of Ramana Maharshi. His own guru was a mountain in India, and the teachers that followed in his footsteps advocated for rigorous self-inquiry to break identifying beliefs. In this way, I untethered myself from my former identities–as a student, a child who’d been kicked out of her home, and a girl who lived in perpetual longing. Instead, I experienced a level of freedom beyond this physical world. A freedom to belong to no one, and to no longer be beholden to a defining past.

For several years, that way of life carried me, inspired me, and led me to explore new ways of living. In Boulder, I learned Five-rhythm dance with a student of its founder, Gabrielle Roth. In New Mexico, I learned about permaculture and vision quests. In Maui, I fasted for a week in a cave on the side of a canyon, journeying on peyote and ayahuasca. I lived in multiple ashrams and spiritual communities, had sexual experiences with people and teachers that helped me discover what I liked and didn’t like, and learned how to use my body and breath as a tool for growth. I experienced massive and profound healing. At times, this caused panic attacks; other times, I felt connected to the whole universe as a being of many faces.

And then, after following a fledgling modeling career to Los Angeles, I was hit by a car and had a near-death experience. I felt the pull to “go home” to the light…peace was imminent…I wanted it, welcomed it. I even surrendered to it. But it was not yet my time. I was thrust back into my body and awakened bloodied in the street. My years of wandering were over.

Unable to move, I fought nightmares, neurological damage, and irrational, sudden fears. In a confusing, muddy haze, my life was changed back to a darkness, utterly and completely. In the course of healing, I met someone, was married, and became pregnant with my daughter. It didn’t work out and I became a single mother of a one-year old. But I fell prey to alcoholism and addictive behaviors. I bottomed out in a suicidal haze. I got sober: the fight of, and for, my life. I got a “real job,” put on dress clothes and heels, and commuted to Downtown LA. I worked hard and was promoted until I became, in the eyes of the world, a normative ‘success.’

And then, once again, I was knocked to the ground. At thirteen–nearly the same age I was when I was kicked out of my mother’s house–my daughter recovered repressed memories of unspeakable abuse. I was summoned, all over again, to find a strength I was unsure I had. I would have to become the mother bear, fighting for her life as she spiraled into drugs and alcohol, self-harm, and suicidality from PTSD.

Reflection

In spite of the challenging roads I’ve traveled, I’ve always been in love. As a child, I was in love with nature and animals. As a teen, with philosophy, art, and romance. As a young woman, I loved dance and yoga and wanderlust. As an adult, I’ve fallen in love with the balancing act of self-care, work, and mothering. But often, the loves of my life have been threatened. My stories are about recovering when love is taken from us, by reconnecting to the voice that summons us to live passionately. I believe that our stories have the power to connect us – making what’s personal, communal, and returning us to hope.

I am grateful to thrive in the city of Los Angeles, where all my experiences inform my creative work. In addition to my memoir, I am part of a small team of writers as Samansara Media. We cowrite novellas and screenplays about what it means to live our own version of love, the nature of impossible choices, and how to evolve past the limitations of modern life. We attempt to create and explore with energized doses of healthy boundaries, humor, joy.